


Grow up.

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Fairies, Gen, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Inspired by Fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3197351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>no joke, "tea at the math" is something ive found in my search history, alongside "sdo strangers trample us," when i was manic and incoherent as hell.</p><p>please read bitter monsters! it is so good, and beautiful, and amazing, and i love it. im sorry for writing mean things happening to your precious jay, jaythewriter.</p></blockquote>





	Grow up.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bitter Monsters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2403287) by [jaythewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter). 



The man next to him has his legs tucked up to his hunched-over body, shaky hands wrapped over his knees, scuffed sneakers with worn soles poking out over his mat, and tousled hair covering his eyes. Jay can't see his face under the oily brown hair, but he hears the stranger murmuring to himself, in an agitated, hoarse whisper.

He rocks back and forth, breathing in deeply at every pause. “The tea, at the math, and strangers teaching it...what's it got to do, have to move on, don't trample the fairies, don't trample me...”

“Hello!” Jay says cheerfully. “Are you a fairy, too?”

He stops rocking, and moves a strand of hair out of his face in order to glare at Jay. “What's it to you?”

“My name's Jay. Like the bird!” He smiles and scoots closer to the man's mat. “I've never met another fairy before! Do you know what a month is? I do, because I figured out I'm a month old now, from a thing called a 'calendar.' Months are made of days, which are made of smaller things called hours and minutes, and those can't be seen on calendars, but on 'clocks.' That means I've been alive for a month, and a whole ton of hours and minutes, and that's a long time. That's the longest time I can think of.”

Jay stops to sneeze, and glitter showers over his blanket. He keeps smiling, though, because he's proud he remembered all that stuff about calendars and clocks. “It's cool meeting another fairy. What's your name?”

“Keep it down,” someone nearby grumbles.

“Sorry!” Jay says. “Oh, I mean - ” he lowers his voice drastically - _“sorry.”_

“You're a month old?” the person next to him finally responds.

“A whole month. How many months old are you?”

“Billions, I think. I'm a million years old.”

“Whoa.” Jay can barely conceal his awe. “I dunno what a billion or a million means, but you must be really, really old.”

“I'm immortal. I can never die.”

“That's _amazing._ You're amazing.”

“...Thanks,” he says, looking pleased. He gives a cursory look around the rest of the shelter, and leans close to Jay to say, “You seem nice, so I'll tell you a secret. My name's Alex, Alex Kralie. I'm the king of the fairies.”

“Really? I didn't know there was a king.” He doesn't know what a king is, but it sounds very important.

“Yes, I am. Usually I'd have to punish you for not recognizing your ruler, but I'll let it slide for now.”

“Oh! Thank you. That's very kind of you.”

He nods. “I am a merciful king.”

“You must -”

“Ssh! You can't let the humans know. I told you, it's a secret,” Alex hisses. Jay apologies quickly, but he folds his legs closer and duck his head down, eyeing Jay and the other people around them.

“Can I make it up to you, please? I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you angry.” He feels tears well up in his eyes. “Nobody's talked to me for this long. I'm sorry I upset you. Please tell me how to make it up to you, please...”

“I'm royalty. There's not much I need from someone who isn't.” Alex watches him rub his wet eyes, and his tears are blue-ish and crystalline. “But, maybe, if you can...” He shows Jay his hands, how they shake violently. “...make my bones stop trying to get away, and I could forgive you.”

“Of course! I'll do it right away.” Jay takes his hands in his own, and he closes his eyes. He breathes out, softly, and lets his powers run through his body and into Alex.

When Alex pulls away, his skin is covered in sparkles, but he has a smile on his face. The scars on his hands are gone, and the wrinkles, too. He looks younger, more refreshed.

“Did I do good?” Jay asks earnestly.

“Very good. So good, I'll have to reward you. I'll let you be a part of my court.”

“Does that mean we're friends?”

“Yes. I think you can be a trusted ally. This is a honor I'm bestowing on you, so -”

A woman on the loud speaker announces in a curt voice that she's going to be shutting off the lights now, and that everyone should keep quiet until the morning. The shelter fills with the sound of rustling blankets and creaking floors as everyone settles into their mats for the night. The voice doesn't stop anyone from talking, but Jay would rather sleep in a noisy homeless shelter than outside, alone, without the body warmth of humans in an enclosed space to keep him comfortable. 

Alex curls up around his blanket, feet sticking out awkwardly.

“Goodnight, fairy king,” Jay says softly.

He mumbles quietly back to Jay as he drifts off.

Thankfully, no one notices the glow around Jay's body in the darkness. He hides under his blanket, grinning, trying to hold back a burst of glitter.

He's made a _friend._

A couple days later – he hasn't gotten the hang of time just yet, but he's getting there – he finds himself wandering through town, admiring the metal and plastic and cement and noisy, laughing, frowning, hurrying, strolling, glaring, smiling people that make up a city. At least the children wave back at him. 

He slept in a local park last night, and a barking dog who sniffed him out of the grass woke him up abruptly by trying to lick him. He laughs remembering how the dog jumped back when he grew to the size of their owner, who was obliviously sitting on a faraway bench. 

Alabama's been stuck in a dry spell, so there hasn't been much dew and rain droplets to feed off of. The way his stomach grumbles scares him; this is his first out of many run-ins with hunger. He chases after the smell of greasy food, ending up outside a brightly colored place with a large yellow M in the front.

He recognizes someone, seated at one of the tables outside, with scuffed sneakers and tousled hair. He gasps, “Alex!”

Alex looks up, face haggard and irritable, as Jay sits down opposite him. “You're that sparkly guy from the shelter...Jay, right?”

“Yes! You remembered my name! It's nice to see you again.” He whispers in a conspiratorial tone, “How's it going, being king and all? Do any, um, important fairy stuff recently?”

“Yeah, totally, been doing lots of important fairy stuff, like begging for food outside a McDonald's and trying not to get a heat stroke,” Alex scoffs.

The sarcasm goes right over Jay's head. “Sounds like you're really busy.”

“Busy being bankrupt, homeless, and a crack addict, yeah. I'm living the life.” He sighs, and takes a bite of a burger that smells like oil and paradise to Jay. “I'm surprised they even let me in the shelter that night, you know...or that somebody actually bought me some food. Here, you want some?”

Alex pushes a small bag of fries towards Jay. He pokes at it, curiously. “Can I eat this?”

“It's bad for you, but, hey, it's food.”

Jay sniffs the bag; his stomach growls in return. He picks one fry up, examines it against the sunlight like a cashier checking to see if a dollar bill is fake, and puts it in his mouth.

His eyes light up, and he promptly scarfs down the rest of the fries.

“Thank you, Alex! You are a generous king.”

“Look, dude, I'm not really a king. Fairies don't exist, you know.”

“What...what do you mean?”

“Fairies aren't real, and I'm not a king. I was pretty fucked up that night we met. I don't know what you're on, but stop calling me a king. It's weird – oh my God, don't cry. C'mon, we're in public.”

Jay hides his face in his hand, “B-b-but I thought you were, I thought we were friends, and you were the first other fairy I've found, and you were, and I was, and we were, and, and -”

“Get a handle on yourself. I barely know you. God, how has someone like you survived on the streets?”

“I...I don't know, I don't know, I'm...”

Alex finishes his burger, and wipes his mouth with odd brown papers from a box on the table. “You do act like you're just a month old.”

“I...I am.”

“Grow up.” He pushes back his chair and aims his burger wrapper at a trash can. He misses, and has to get up, pick it off the ground, and put it in the trash can himself.

He doesn't come back to the table.

Jay uses the odd brown papers to dry his glittery tears, and they hurt against his skin, too rough and scratchy, but he wipes his eyes raw.

**Author's Note:**

> no joke, "tea at the math" is something ive found in my search history, alongside "sdo strangers trample us," when i was manic and incoherent as hell.
> 
> please read bitter monsters! it is so good, and beautiful, and amazing, and i love it. im sorry for writing mean things happening to your precious jay, jaythewriter.


End file.
